BNG Mechanics

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Welcome to day one, week one of official Born of the Gods previews over on the mothersite.  We've already had a few unofficial Magic: the Gathering spoilers already as well as a lovely Christmas / Holiday WotC preview.  For the latest 'n' greatest, pop over to our Born of the Gods Spoiler List which we will endeavour to continually keep up to date as previews and spoilers get published.

For today's post, we want to go over new and returning mechanics as posted by Kelly Digges to the mothersite.  This is a very simplified summary so we suggest reading the article as well as the Born of the Gods Release Notes expected in another two weeks or so.  Anywhoos - Let's go!

Returning MechanicsDevotion is a mechanic introduced in Theros and returning to Born of the Gods. It always appears as Devotion to [color], where color is either white, blue, black, red or green. Devotion to a color is defined as a numerical value that a player has, equal to the number of mana symbols of that color in the mana costs of permanents the player controls. Hybrid mana symbols count toward both their colors but aren't counted twice.  Ephara, God of the Polis has a devotion ability for blue & white.

Heroic is another returning ability with the example here as Ashiok's Adept.  A creature with heroic gives the controlling player powerful benefits every time he casts a spell that targets it.  If a spell targets multiple creatures with heroic abilities, all of them trigger. Activated abilities, such as equip, do not cause heroic abilities to trigger, nor do triggered abilities such as the enters-the-battlefield ability

Bestow is a keyword introduced in Theros and returning to Born of the Gods.  A creature with bestow gives you the option to cast it as an Aura that enchants a creature, granting that creature its power, toughness, and abilities.  Nyxborn Shieldmate has an example of bestow.

Scry is a returning keyword action that allows a player to look at a certain number of cards at the top of his or her library and put them back in any order.  When you scry 1, that translates to looking at the top card of your library and deciding whether you want it on the top of your library or the bottom. When you scry 2 or more, you have more options.  The three new BNG scrylands (Temple of Enlightenment, Temple of Malice, and Temple of Plenty) are great examples of the scry ability.  We are definitely picking up deck sets of all from MTG Mint Card.

New MechanicsInspired in a new ability in Born of the Gods.  A creature's inspired ability triggers every time the creature becomes untapped. That's normally at the start of your turn, but an inspired ability triggers no matter how or when the creature untaps.  Pain Seer is an example of the new Inspired tech.
 Tribute is the other new ability in Born of the Gods as shown here with Pharagax Giant.  A creature with a tribute ability offers an opponent a choice when the spell resolves.  The opponent may either allow the creature to becomes even larger (with one or more +1 counters), or if no 'tribute' was paid, as the creature enters the battlefield a variety of stated effects take place which may include destroying permanents, dealing damage to your opponent, and fighting opposing creatures.
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